Documenting my journey through the mental health system

I still remember quite clearly my first morning in the hospital. I woke up after restless, fitful sleep, in which I was frequently startled awake by room checks. I just wanted coffee, so I went to the dining room. The kitchen would bring a large carafe of coffee in the mornings and it would be there on the counter. I attempted to make a cup…I pulled the cup off the stack, tried to locate creamer or milk but I couldn’t, tried to figure out which carafe was decaf and which wasn’t, but I couldn’t. I got overwhelmed and turned around and hurried back to my room. I sat on the bed and put my face in my hands and started to cry. Just trying to get a cup of coffee had overwhelmed me to tears.

There are cameras in all the rooms of the VA psych ward. So I was seen while I cried, and in a short amount of time, a nurse came in to check on me.

“Angel? What’s going on?”

VA nurses are pretty stellar, especially the ones working in the psych ward. I was overwhelmed and didn’t know what to say. I sputtered something about being unable to make a cup of coffee, I just wanted coffee and I couldn’t figure it out…

She walked with me back to the dining room where breakfast had arrived. Helped me with the coffee, figuring out where the creamer was, etc. Was very soft spoken and reassuring. I sniffed and tried to stop crying.

I muddled through that morning, restless and scared. My long hair hung past my shoulders, another thing I had just fucked off. I was unkempt and pacing nervously in my room when the doctor came and got me.

Dr Floura was the unit psychiatrist, supposedly some kind of wunderkind as a child and a brilliant doctor. He asked me how I was doing.

I tried to explain. “I’m already dead, I just exist. I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t live like this…” I was crying again, unable to finish a sentence. Dr Floura attempted to redirect me.

“Angel…Angel, look at me,” he said. I sniffed and looked up.

“I know things seem hopeless and dark right now. But I promise with the right medication and therapy, it will get better and you will feel better.” He sounded very assuring but I was full of doubt. I didn’t say anything.

He revamped my entire medication cocktail. I was started on a high dose of Effexor for depression, Abilify for psychosis, Lamotrigine for mood stabilization, and Vistaril for anxiety. I also took Prazosin for nightmares and he added more Vistaril, Melatonin and Trazodone to help me sleep. A severe insomniac, I struggled with sleep then as I do now.

My dark room was mildly comforting. I laid back down in the bed, wrapping the suicide blanket around myself. I didn’t try to take a shower, just slept. Later I got up and wandered the hall. Just then Dr Floura walked by.

“I want you to try to spend some time out of your room. Stuck inside a dark room is not good for you right now. Go to some of the groups.”

I sighed and nodded. I did as he said and went to the next group – a psychoeducation class on boundaries or interpersonal effectiveness or something. After that, I was allowed to see my phone.

The VA psych unit is different than other mental hospitals and psych units in which I’ve been a patient. The biggest difference is that we’re allowed to use our phone outside group times, as long as we stay by the nurse station. They’re kept on chargers there, each one tagged with our name. We’re allowed to have personal hygiene products – so I had my own face wash, my own conditioner, my own hair gel for taming my curls. Being a little picky with these things, I’m so relieved at least the VA psych ward is permissible in their hygiene bucket policy. The unit is small, with only 12 beds. It is all voluntary only. During my very first stay in 3 South in 2011, not long after I left the Army, smoking was still allowed. They have, and still have, a sort of enclosed balcony at the very end of the unit. It looks out behind the hospital. It’s now used as a type of solarium, and I would sit out here sometimes, stretching myself in the sun coming through the new glass panes. It would get warm while the air remained cool.

I made a couple phone calls and asked my friend Ceila to bring headphones – I could really benefit from music and I forgot headphones when I frantically threw some shit in a bag after Dr Black told me to. She came and got my car for me too, and took it back home so my mom wasn’t stranded. I called my boss and let them know to take me off the schedule for a week. I tried to think of who else to call…I let my brother know where I was. Only he and Ceila would know. I wouldn’t call my mother for a few more days.

I finished out the day in evening group, mostly quiet, and reporting on my evening group sheet that I felt powerless, hopeless, and the totality of despair was overwhelming. I took new meds and drifted off into restless sleep and vague nightmares and confused lucidity.